1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to video players and editors and, in particular, to a hypervideo system and method of playing and creating hypervideos.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet and its associated World Wide Web (Web) are well known. The Internet and the Web are distributed networks of computers, including servers and clients. Also well known are the techniques for navigating the Web via computers employing graphical user interfaces (GUI). The more common techniques include the processes of “point and click” and “click and drag” to select, activate and implement actions via GUIs. Instead of typing commands to specify actions or instructions, a user, via a GUI, typically executes a point and click maneuver or other techniques to activate the command/instruction represented by an icon.
Hypertext formatted documents and hyperlinks are also known from viewing hypertext documents on the Web. Hypertext formatted documents contain hyperlinks to other documents and files. Hyperlinks specify the name and location of documents and files using Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). URL is a standard for specifying an object on the Internet. It specifies an access method and location for files. Since a URL specifies the location of files, URLs are commonly referred to as the address for the files linked via hyperlinks. The linked document(s) and file(s) may be located locally or, more typically, remotely on the Internet. Selection of a hyperlink typically downloads document(s) and/or image(s) specified by the associated URL for local viewing at the user's display.
The text comprising a hyperlink is usually indicated by some form of display attribute, which delineates the hyperlink text from the surrounding text. The form of the hyperlink display attribute can vary. Typically, the text of a hyperlink is displayed as a specific color of text (e.g., blue text) and/or underlined text. A hyperlink may link to local or remotely located audio, video or image files. Hyperlinks enable easy navigation of the Web as well as the cross-referencing of hypertext formatted documents.
Hypermedia is generally used to describe the fusion of two technologies, namely the multimedia and hypertext technologies. Multimedia technology refers to information formats containing a combination of text, images, graphics, audio and/or video. While hypertext technology, as described above, is most commonly known from viewing text-based documents on the Web, hypertext technology may also be incorporated with animation and video. Hypermedia documents are hypertext documents with multimedia capabilities. Hypermedia documents may contain a combination of text, video, images, audio and hypertext. Hypervideo, as used herein, refers to a video augmented with hyperlinks. For example, a description of hypervideo may be found an article entitled: “NEC's Video Hypertext System”, Newsbytes News Network, Jul. 31, 1995.
A hypervideo displays both video images and hyperlinks. The hyperlinks in hypervideos are referred to herein as hypervideo hyperlinks. A hypervideo hyperlink is generally displayed concurrently on or near the video images associated with the hypervideo hyperlink. Conventional hypervideo players display hypervideo hyperlinks at the display position and in the particular format designated by the creators of the hypervideo. The display location and the form of hypervideo emphasis displayed are fixed (i.e., static).
Similar to a hypertext hyperlink in a hypertext document, a hypervideo hyperlink in a hypervideo is often indicated by a hypervideo hyperlink emphasis region. The display attributes of the hypervideo hyperlink emphasis region delineate the hypervideo hyperlink from the surrounding video, thereby providing a visual indicator of those portions of the hypervideo having hypervideo hyperlinks embedded therein.
The hypervideo hyperlink emphasis region may be displayed as a visually distinctive border or background color that delineates the region wherein one or more hypervideo hyperlinks are located. The information linked via hyperlink to a segment of video in a hypervideo typically contains information related to the images displayed in or near a hypervideo hyperlink emphasis region. The linked content may include information in the form of text, audio, video, two- or three-dimensional images or a combination thereof.
HyperCafe is an experimental hypermedia prototype, developed to illustrate a general hypervideo system. This program places the user in a virtual cafe, which is composed primarily of digital video clips of actors involved in fictional conversations in the cafe. HyperCafe allows the user to follow different conversations, and offers dynamic opportunities of interaction via temporal, spatio-temporal and textual links to present alternative narratives. HyperCafe is discussed in an article entitled: “HyperCafe: Narrative and Aesthetic Properties of Hypervideo,” (N. Sawhney et al., Hypertext'96: Seventh ACM Conference on Hypertext, Mar. 20, 1996.
V-Active is an authoring tool for the creation of interactive movies. V-Active is part of MediaBuilder by Veon Technologies. It uses the HyperVideo technology to identify hypervideo hyperlinks in digital video files. The tool allows a user to prepare video clips with the hypervideo hyperlink information and then to link the hypervideo hyperlinked video clips to other types of media.
Progressive Networks, Inc. has included “click-able video maps” in their RealVideo technology. A mouse click on a portion of the video can cause a new video clip to be played, or a seek to be performed within a current clip, or a URL message to be sent. Progressive Networks, Inc provides the RealPlayer which enables this interactivity. A description of RealVideo may be found in “RealVideo Technical White Paper”.
There are several perceived problems with conventional hypermedia technology. First, conventional hypervideo players require extensive resources in order to process hypervideos. This is because the hypervideo hyperlink information encoded in hypervideos is encoded in each frame of the hypervideo having associated hypervideo hyperlink(s). A video file comprises a plurality of single still image frames. When the single video images are displayed contiguously at a sufficiently high frame rate (e.g., 25 –30 frames per second), then the displayed single images are perceived as full motion video. The term frame number refers to the number of a video frame in a sequence of contiguous video still image frames (i.e., a video). Therefore, in a conventional hypervideo the hypervideo hyperlink information is encoded in each frame (e.g., 25–30 frames/second) of the hypervideo having associated hypervideo hyperlink(s) therein. The resources required to encode and process (i.e., play) conventional hypervideos is therefore extensive.
Second, conventional hypervideo players are static devices. That is, they cannot alter the manner in which the hypervideo hyperlink emphasis information is displayed and do not provide the user with control over the hypervideo display. Therefore, a user employing traditional hypervideo players is constrained to viewing the hypervideo hyperlink emphasis forms chosen by the creator of the hypervideo.